Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of funding a public awareness campaign on male violence against women and girls.

We have recently published the Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy to help ensure that women and girls are safe everywhere - at home, online and on the streets. The new strategy commits this government to using communications to create behaviour change that targets and challenge perpetrators, educates young people about healthy relationships and consent, and ensures victims can recognise abuse and non-contact sexual offending. The Strategy was informed by an unprecedented 180,000 responses from the general public and stakeholders as part of our Call for Evidence.

The campaign follows the swift action at the beginning of the pandemic last year where the Government launched the #YouAreNotAlone campaign. The campaign raised awareness of domestic abuse and the support available to those suffering from it, signposting those seeking support to the gov.uk domestic abuse support page Domestic abuse: how to get help - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) where they can access support services, including Refuge’s National Domestic Abuse Helpline. The campaign reached millions of people through digital advertising, and specialist community engagement activity with campaign materials translated into 16 languages.

We also launched and promoted the ‘Ask for ANI’ codeword scheme which provides a simple and discreet way for domestic abuse victims to signal that they need immediate help using a codeword in participating pharmacies. Almost half of all pharmacies across the UK, including Boots, are now participating in the scheme, following the launch in January 2021.